Has cycling become a bit of a rip-off activity?

The 'would you buy a Carrera?' thread got me thinking again about something I've pondered for quite a while now. Bikes, and the cost of cycling in general seems to have risen quite steeply over the last few years, although it's not helped that our economy is a bit screwed at the moment. But I've noticed the cost of cycling stuff has risen disproportionately when compared to other things. Granted, advances in technology have brought exotic new materials and processes, but biking seems to be getting more and more expensive.

What are the reasons for this? Rise in popularity of cycling? Weak Pound? Higher material costs? Or just manufacturers and suppliers using slick marketing to squeeze every penny they can out of us, now that we're hooked?

I was in a bike shop the other day, and in the window was a Scott Addict road bike. Lots of carbon. Very nice.

SIX THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED POUNDS.

WTF? What for? 10 years ago, a TOTR road bike with Dura Ace or Record would have set you back £2000, £3000 tops really. Even an exotic full suss mtb would have been only slightly higher. £2000 barely gets you a 105 equipped bike these days. By contrast, other things haven't doubled or trebled in price. And this isn't a boutique small company, this is Scott. A huge company producing millions of bikes a year. Huger purchasing power. How TF has the price of a fairly simple machine become so inflated? And I hear one of their full suss mtbs is £7500. Is that right? Also, components are now silly money. £75 for an XT cassette? They were only about £45 a couple of years ago. Are they now made out of platinum? Clothing is silly too; £80 for a pair of bike shorts? Why? They're not super fantastic design or materials. I haven't noticed a corresponding increase in quality, that's for sure. In fact, quite the opposite; things seem to wear out quicker and quicker.

Personally, I feel that things have just got a bit out of hand, and companies are just taking the piss. Or am I missing something?

BTW, if anyone's got any 'obsolete' 9-speed stuff they want to give me, I'll take it off their hands. It's all about 10-speed now you know. Careful you don't get seen in the car park with anything less…

I agree. When mountain biking is featured on the cover of GQ magazine you know it's sold it's soul.

10 yrs ago my house was worth half what it is now…..

i am currently using a bike that cost me £600ish
it is ace.

I agree. When mountain biking is featured on the cover of GQ magazine you know it's sold it's soul.

WTF? Has MTB got agency?

Yes. We are all driving around in Bentleys and wiping our hoops with tenners this year, not fivers.

Yes, some companies make bikes at £7500 – how many of these do you think are actually sold.

They also make bikes at £200. They sell A LOT of them.

but biking seems to be getting more and more expensive

is it really though? commuting on bike is massively cheaper than in a car.

riding at the weekends for the average leisure cyclist is cost inconsequential.

You are forgetting the normal level and focussing on the high end.

Some manufacturers are taking consumers for a ride- I think Trek is a particularly bad one for this. The 1.5 road bike next year is £900. For plain round tubes, no hydroforming, a square taper chainset, no name hubs and Tiagra. Only 2 years ago you were looking at 105, full hydroforming and a Bonty cartridge bearing wheelset for that money. They have very much taken advantage of the situation I reckon.

However, I think there's more "top end" tech going about resulting in much more expensive bikes at the top of the range. £3000 got you a pretty top bouncer a few years ago, but suspension technology, disc brakes and the march of carbon fibre mean a £4-5k bike is often still worth that much even relative to past bikes.

And, on top of this, you get a lot more tech for less money these days- £450 now will get you a full hydroformed frame with alloy bits and hydro discs. Imagine that a few years back!

And you can have my 9spd stuff- shimano 10 speed is surprisingly affordable. XT cassetes are only 60 quid!

ton – Member

i am currently using 600 bikes that cost me £s
it is ace.

fair play to you. 🙂

I'm not sure I agree entirely. 2-3 years ago, £1,000 got you a road bike with an aluminium frame and carbon stays. Now it gets you one with a carbon frame. At some price points I think we're seeing a lot of value, and a lot of improvement in what your money gets you. But the upper end of the market has gone into orbit price-wise, and is probably not very good value.

and to add to this… my Surly i just boughtened is cheap and meh and OMG it is ace.

You don't have to spend lots on anything to have fun.

Fun can be free. That's the joy of it.

If you think bikes are a rip-off, stay away from HIFI – far away!

The top-super bikes have always been expensive though – The GT lobo was what – £5k in 1997?

The biggest rip off is inner tubes .. a fiver each and the shop pays 80p.

Prices doubling in a decade doesn't seem that unreasonable in a mature technology area given inflation, exchange rates and the rest. Not much benefit from early technology getting cheaper.

The flip side is think what bike you can get for a grand now compared to 15 years ago. Think how capable (up and down) it is and what bikes were like then. And if you don't know visit Retrobike and buy one.

The biggest rip off is inner tubes .. a fiver each and the shop pays 80p

do they…?

what brand? i want some!

" a fiver each and the shop pays 80p."

Where can I get a trade deal that good? I'd be very interested to find out!

Its as expensive as you want it to be. I've throwntogether a summer seasons for just over £300 which since building has meant that the 5spot hasn't had a look in.
You can spend silly money – I know, I have – but you don't need to.

*hi fives fellow bike shop person being ripped off by the manufacturers buddy*

S'funny, I've just been looking at motorbikes again recently and they all seem very cheap – like the prices haven't gone up soooo much from when I was biking 20-25 years ago. I wondered if perhaps the technology had levelled off somewhat, whereas (as SpokesCycles refers to) bicycle technology is still developing?

Materials are prone to sudden shortages due to conflicting products ( the new carbon airliner is a good example) and these shortages are reflected in the prices. Global production has been heavily scaled back over the last three on a lot of items and now that demand has picked up, production shortages are affecting prices. But that's not all that's pushing prices up. There's a cult of upgrade in MTB, and I've been as guilty as everyone else in the past. Look at the magazines: it's all about seasonal products and fashion. That's fine up to a point, but it's finally resulted in companies charging close to a grand for a bike. And we don't even blink. It's mad.

Nice bike though…

Materials gone up in price?
Costs of manufacturing in China gone up as their economy develops?
Transportation costs gone up?
Continual (and unnecessary) 'innovation' from some companies mean R&D are always high?
Exchange rate?

*back atcha*

Its the new golf innit?

they charge that, because they know that some daft g1t wants to splash his cash on flash stuff (and thats their choice), but its only the same as some dude at the golf club shelling out ££££'s on a putter

moi? I fall into the 'mtb-pauper' category

there was an article in mbr/st/similar the other month which compared the cost of a 'good bike' with average wages, from current, 10 yrs ago, 20 yrs ago etc. I can't remember the figures but it demonstrated that in real terms a £1000 bike now is less 'days pay' on average than it has ever been

For me its about balacing cost against what I get out of it, as long as I am using my bike enough to warrant the cost then Im fine with paying a few grand. I feel you only have a finite amount of years when you can really push yourself, and during this time I would like to think its me that is holding me back and not my hardwear.

Disagree its probably easier than ever to find bargins. Proportionally I the bike I ride now accounts for roughly the same ammount of my income as it did 20 years ago. A lot of the clothing seems to be cheaper now than it was 10 or 20 years back. Biking prob hasnt held prices constant in the same way walking and climbing kit has – mid to high end goretex seems to have been around £200-£300 since the early 90's.

Anyone who hasn't; have a read of the 'Would you buy a Carrera?' thread, which kind of maybe explains part of it. Some really blinkered and brainwashed views, from one or two folk denouncing the Banshee frame as being 'lower quality' than other, more 'respected' brands. It's this kind of bullshit marketing I'm talking about. Trust me, I've seen über-expensive 'niche' brand bikes break, be heavier than the competition, or just really not all that great value for money. People really do pay more for 'designer brands', with no real benefits. It seems to be a major part of our consumer culture. We're spending more and more on stuff we don't need, and trying to find more reasons to justify our purchases.

As for the Hi-Fi analogy; stuff made my middle-aged men for middle-aged men who don't realise their hearing has deteriorated to a point where the 'benefits' of the stuff they splash thousands on are virtually non-existence, other maybe than to somehow bolster their fragile egos. I'm not against the pursuit of excellence, I just don't think we're getting anything like that really. Compare a bike for £500 now, with an equivalent value one built 30 years ago. The quality of the vintage bike is superior, better metal etc. Maybe lower tech, but more longevity. We pay more for gimmicks that we are fooled into believing will enhance our lives.

My friend has been complaining about prices lately. And his take on it was "I knew when all these toffs started getting into buying expensive bikes it would go through the roof". As in people with money buying it because they have the money and the manufacturers taking advantage of the situation by increasing the prices! And the same people going out and buying them because there is a market for it. It seems everything else has followed trend. Or is it?

Someone made a valid point on here a couple of weeks back, if no one buys the high end bikes that cost allot more to maunfacture then there is no drip down effect of technology as the research cannot be funded.

You can buy cycling specific socks and you're *asking* if cycle related retailers are ripping us off?

It's a market and it will be targetted by money grabbing ****. Sadly it's also a market that is frequented by people with way too much money, this only exaerbates the problem.

It's like growing up in Ramsbottom. You think you have an Idylic lifestyle. Surrounded by big hills, isolated from the big city. You can't get radio 2 but that's a small price to pay. Then you try and buy a house of your own but they all cost £750,000 now because a load of cockneys have turned up with 8 million pounds after selling their garages, even that flat above the chippy with a dead pig with a reamed arse stuck in the fireplace is 500k, so you can't afford it and end up renting a flat in Middleton and get addicted to crack cocaine and have to sell your botty to survive.

That's what the cycling industry has done to itself.

10 years ago, a TOTR road bike with Dura Ace or Record would have set you back £2000

Rubbish. My 12 year road bike set me back £1500, and was definitely not top of the range – was the cheap Time carbon frame (they did a far more expensive one), had Ultegra, and basic handbuilt wheels. The TT bike I bought a year earlier set me back ~£3.5k.

Meanwhile I bought a replacement road bike a couple of years ago for £2k. Now that does have Record, is far lighter than the previous one (also lighter than what the pros ride in the TdF etc.) and has flashier wheels. Of course you could spend a lot more, but that has always been the way.

I think there is an element of 'is the cart before the horse or is the horse before the cart' about all this.

My comment earlier about mountain biking selling it's soul is a reflection of how I see it now. When I began mountain biking it was, or it seemed to me at the time, to be about riding your bike. It didn't matter who you were, or what you rode or where you rode…you were just a mountain biker.

Contrast to now where a far greater emphasis seems to be placed on what you ride and where you ride and how often you've been to the trail center advertised in any of the plethora of mountain bike magazines now available, and whether or not you were wearing sufficient protective equipment and the appropriate clothing and how far you travelled to get there and whether or not you've been to the Alps yet or to Canada and…on…and on…and on…

No. We're a market. Like it or not, we're a market and we're being squeezed.

Anyone want to come for a bike ride?

As for the Hi-Fi analogy; stuff made my middle-aged men for middle-aged men who don't realise their hearing has deteriorated to a point where the 'benefits' of the stuff they splash thousands on are virtually non-existence, other maybe than to somehow bolster their fragile egos. I'm not against the pursuit of excellence, I just don't think we're getting anything like that really. Compare a bike for £500 now, with an equivalent value one built 30 years ago. The quality of the vintage bike is superior, better metal etc. Maybe lower tech, but more longevity. We pay more for gimmicks that we are fooled into believing will enhance our lives.

see, i have worked in both industries and can say with a strong opinion that you are talking, Actual Nonsense.

are you trolling?

You spend what you want, when I started a £300 bike was steel, rigid forks, no hydroforming, cantilever brakes, friction gears and overall not great, now £300 gets you an amazing bike.

You sure your not on about cheltenham samuri? Im bent over ready.

Spent £3500 grand on a turner only 5 years ago, a big outlay, would have struggled to find better components for it. Now that seems to be a mid range price for the big mass producing companies (specialized, commencal etc). I cant see how it can be put down to technological advances. They are still rehashing the same suspension designs (horst, vpp, single pivot,) the bikes are not that much lighter etc and its still welding tubes of metal together.

Personally I think that retailers/manufacturers across the board are just greedy and lazy. They've got used to the last 10 years of people buying anything and everything on credit to keep up with the joneses and therefore use the business model of the more we charge the more you want it. Its really got on my wick recently. The attitude seems to be, you want to buy the best, we will tell you what that is, you will pay it and extra costs will be hidden and payed without complaint, everything MUST be replaced with the latest model every year.

Im kind of hoping that the next few years of financial strife really gives the the bike industry and (retail in general) a good hard kick in the nuts. From the chain bike shops to the global manufacuters of swoopy hydroformed marketing. Unfortuantly alot of the smaller guys will go down with them but IMO mountain biking and us in general will be better for it

aracer; 10 years ago a TOTR bike from one of the large companies would have cost about £2000. I know. I saw them. I lusted after them. Time is hardly a large bike manufacturing company. My point was, that a bike from a global company is on sale at a silly inflated price. It's a stock off the peg machine, not a custom built to individual spec one-off.

'Research cannot be funded'.

Eh? It's not the LHC! It's a bloody bicycle! Have you any idea how much bullshit goes into marketing bikes? My cooker and fridge use fancier materials than my bikes! Large companies make billions of pounds, from selling millions of bikes. Don't tell me they can't afford a few quid for a bit of 'R+D'.

I'm glad I don't play golf. That is the perfect example of a rip-off activity. £1200 for a stick?

I don't think it's restricted to bikes and bike parts though, is it? Earlier today I was stunned to discover a packet of Polo mints costs 49p.

I found an old MBUK from the mid-90s a few months back, and there was a Stif advert with some prices which made me raise my eyebrows.

Offroad Proflex 953 was about £3500
Merlin Ti frame well over £2k

I agree that the average income probably hasn't risen in the same degree as bike prices, but I'm not sure wages have really matched the increase in goods in general for quite some time now.

It's five years since I bought my last bike, and the equivalent model now costs well over £2k more. I certainly haven't seen my payslip increase proportionally.

Then again, I graduated 12 years ago and I've only just started earning what was considered to be the average starting salary for a graduate back then. That's kind of irrelevant to this thread, but I like to remind myself now and again of what a career failure I am.

Have trail centres started charging yet? Because i can see it happening in the near future if it hasnt already!

elfinsafety – Like Mark from STW i invite you to come visit your average typical run of the mill indy LBS for a few days.

We will take you out, get your drunk, leave you in the woods naked etc etc and hopefully show you the other angle to the argument you are making.

I would gladly take you out in the Bently but it is having it's pistons bored for more power at a cost of hundreds of millions so you might have o get your own way here.

Mark TBC

Tyres, brakes, suspension, geometry e.t.c e.t.c. is more than twice as good as it was 10 years ago.

I rest my case. G'night!